Frustrating moments in gaming

Honorable mention - The AI from Homeworld. Same cheating in that the larger your fleet, the larger the enemy fleet in the next level, but at least with homeworld you could beat the enemy with tactics. I personally loved taking a maxed fleet into the final battle and wiping out the 3 fleets of my size. It took a lot of practice and precision, but it was satisfying! The King Arthur cheats though? Not so much.

I believe Homeworld 2 was the primary offender there. H1 was - well, if it did that, it was more subtle about it. I remember jacking about a billion ion frigates and steamrolling the rest of the game, so it clearly couldn't cheat up that much.

The trigens from FarCry. Those bastards were telepathic, literally able to see you perfectly in cover a mile away, so it was nearly impossible to snipe them. And to top it off, it took like 2 or 3 head shots to drop them. Their introduction took a fun but difficult game and turned it into a lesson in painful, painful, trial and error. Also from Far Cry - the waterfall level. While the escape from the chopper was awesome, the unarmed run through the jungle to get to a downed chopper was simply horrific. No ammo, no weapons, the enemy can run faster than you, and you can't hide. Masochistic.

Trigens are allergic to water. Just jump in the river and swim to the chopper.

The blatantly cheating AI in King Arthur - The Role-Playing Game. Where'd you get that army from? It takes me seasons to build an army and you just did it in 1 turn. The fuuuuu? Honorable mention - The AI from Homeworld. Same cheating in that the larger your fleet, the larger the enemy fleet in the next level, but at least with homeworld you could beat the enemy with tactics. I personally loved taking a maxed fleet into the final battle and wiping out the 3 fleets of my size. It took a lot of practice and precision, but it was satisfying! The King Arthur cheats though? Not so much.

Unless you're talking about The Saxons or The Druids conquest-expansions, the armies you're probably talking about are triggered by a certain quest and have a story-based explanation. You'll get powerful full-stack armies appearing either directly in your provinces or appearing nearby and moving into your provinces almost every season until you finish the quest. It's by far the most frustrating portion of the game, but if you know how to abuse the auto-resolve calculations you can avoid a lot of the hassle.

As far as normal kings raising armies, you can see it coming (they'll go from almost no guys to a full set and be in a "recruitment tent"), and if you attack them within a couple seasons none of those units will be at full strength. This is the same thing that you undergo - you can recruit as many units as you want to fill your army, but the more you recruit the longer it'll take. If you hit them on the season they start recruiting, every stack has like 9 guys and you can auto-resolve for 0 losses and some easy experience. It's not like the Total War series, where once a unit is recruited it's immediately at full strength.

Recent one:I died in one of the poorly-conceived Witcher 2 stealth sections, and when I reloaded, several pieces of epic level gear no longer existed, in my inventory, or where the corpses used to be. Not just any gear, like armor that was twice as good and I was lvl23 type gear.

I hate it when a game controls like glop. I hate it when the framerate takes a tumble during critical gameplay moments. I hate it when I have to retry a sequence over and over again because the game doesn't respond to my input because the devs designed the heavy attack animation to be uncancellable, or the response IS SLOW AS SHIT.

Fuck you, Ninja Theory. You pull this shit with DMC (or dMC or what the fuck ever the capitalisation is) and I will ram Dante's sword and revolvers up your ass so hard you'll be shitting every sort of red orb ever for the rest of your goddamned lives. DO YOU HEAR ME

Any Monster Hunter before you get on your feet, learn your weapon's limits, get some good gear, and learn the patterns of each wyvern. And even afterward, if the wyvern's random attack generator decides you've lived long enough, it's just your time to go. Probably the hardest part of that game is letting go of your frustration when you fail and learning to go into new fights minimally equipped, expecting a loss. Didn't help that the PSP's analog pad positioning made it painful to play for me after the first few missions, so if I failed, I often couldn't come back to it until the next day or two later.

This. So much this. I remember a Giant Bomb Quick Look of Super Meat Boy and the mantra was "Never not running" which is the only appropriate way to play these things.

It became so engrained into our entire generation...ALWAYS hold down the run button...it translated into Super Mario World on SNES and beyond.... It's now so unnatural and jarring whenever you see someone playing these games and not running.

Playing Sleeping Dogs can be very frustrating. I finally got a car I liked, pulled over to help a woman with a broken car (to get some XP), and was robbed. After chasing the guy around dozens of twists and turns (you can't catch him until the game lets you), I fight him and get my money back.

The Capra demon early on in Dark Souls caused me no end of rage-quits. In the end, I abandoned the game completely in abject frustration.

As is so often the way, I eventually came back to the game and, some 10 months later, waltzed through it on the 3rd or 4th. As frustrating as the game is, mostly I can live with it - it's usually me getting it wrong. The Capra fight was so cheap though, getting malleted virtually immediately you emerge through the fog door

Street Fighter 2010 was incredibly hard and cheap, but satisfying once you master it. I've never met anyone outside of Youtube with a emulator cheat who beat that game.

I remember that game, and yeah, it was hard. However, once I (or was it my brother?) discovered that the somersault jump makes you invincible for a short time, we could beat the game. The point where you are invincible is while doing the actual move; as it was started with a jump you weren't invincible at that point. Also, once the feet of the character (was Ken his name?) pointed to the ground again, you could take damage as usual. It was enough to dodge some very nasty attacks from the enemies, though, and particularly useful with the last boss.

It was very neat to take advantage of the power-up that made the feet of the character flash, so his somersault jump could be used just as Guile's somersault kick. In fact, it was thanks to that power-up that we ended up discovering the window of invincibility that the somersault gave. Hell, we thought at first that it only worked with the power-up, but no, it worked fine without it. If you still have access to the game, you should probably try it.

The Tiamat battle in Darksiders 1. You've got low max health, weapons are still weak, and you have to get the sticky bombs onto Tiamat in an accessible place, and then hit it with the crossblade after charging it with fire, all the while dodging Tiamat's fire blasts. And when you die, you have to go through a skippable cutscene, follwed by an UNskippable cutscene!

It is the first real boss battle in the game, and it is by far the hardest.

The Tiamat battle in Darksiders 1. You've got low max health, weapons are still weak, and you have to get the sticky bombs onto Tiamat in an accessible place, and then hit it with the crossblade after charging it with fire, all the while dodging Tiamat's fire blasts. And when you die, you have to go through a skippable cutscene, follwed by an UNskippable cutscene!

It is the first real boss battle in the game, and it is by far the hardest.

It took me like six tries to beat Tiamat, and when I did, I was done with the game soon after that. I just lost my will to keep going.

The Tiamat battle in Darksiders 1. You've got low max health, weapons are still weak, and you have to get the sticky bombs onto Tiamat in an accessible place, and then hit it with the crossblade after charging it with fire, all the while dodging Tiamat's fire blasts. And when you die, you have to go through a skippable cutscene, follwed by an UNskippable cutscene!

It is the first real boss battle in the game, and it is by far the hardest.

It took me like six tries to beat Tiamat, and when I did, I was done with the game soon after that. I just lost my will to keep going.

It took me like six tries to beat Tiamat, and when I did, I was done with the game soon after that. I just lost my will to keep going.

This reminds me: Valkyria Chronicles. Silvaria's Last Stand. For those who don't know, imagine you're on a battlefield. Actually, you're in a castle. Actually you're in a small pit in the middle of a fortified castle. The good news is your team of 5-6 dudes spawn behind cover. The bad news is that there's a heavy tank just beyond that cover, pointing at the only exit, and you have to run past it and/or destroy it. While dealing with this tank, there's a dozen snipers in elevated positions firing down at you. And there's also a boss with a gatling sniper laser cannon with cheat-mode accuracy who can hit you from across the map, because she's also elevated and you're in a goddamn hole in the middle of a sniper den with a tank babysitting your spawn point. You have to evade or defeat the tank, stay alive through multiple rounds of sniper fire, a gatling laser boss, entrenched defensive camps with auto-turrets, all while slowly climbing the periphery of the castle under constant fire just to reach the boss. Then you have to actually kill the boss (who has absurd evasion stats) while she's, as if I have to remind you, pumping your important story-related characters full of charged plasma at insta-death ranges.

When I finally beat that stage without losing half my important characters, I just lost the motivation to continue. The game had defeated my soul. Haven't picked it up since.

I need to get back to that. I played through the first four or five missions and got sidetracked with some other new shiny. Haven't picked it up since. Loved the graphics, enjoy the gameplay (so far). I have no idea why I never went back to it.

It took me like six tries to beat Tiamat, and when I did, I was done with the game soon after that. I just lost my will to keep going.

This reminds me: Valkyria Chronicles. Silvaria's Last Stand. For those who don't know, imagine you're on a battlefield. Actually, you're in a castle. Actually you're in a small pit in the middle of a fortified castle. The good news is your team of 5-6 dudes spawn behind cover. The bad news is that there's a heavy tank just beyond that cover, pointing at the only exit, and you have to run past it and/or destroy it. While dealing with this tank, there's a dozen snipers in elevated positions firing down at you. And there's also a boss with a gatling sniper laser cannon with cheat-mode accuracy who can hit you from across the map, because she's also elevated and you're in a goddamn hole in the middle of a sniper den with a tank babysitting your spawn point. You have to evade or defeat the tank, stay alive through multiple rounds of sniper fire, a gatling laser boss, entrenched defensive camps with auto-turrets, all while slowly climbing the periphery of the castle under constant fire just to reach the boss. Then you have to actually kill the boss (who has absurd evasion stats) while she's, as if I have to remind you, pumping your important story-related characters full of charged plasma at insta-death ranges.

When I finally beat that stage without losing half my important characters, I just lost the motivation to continue. The game had defeated my soul. Haven't picked it up since.

I'll give a ++ to this one, that stage got me to quit for just long enough... for my ps3 to die and take the save with it So, yeah, I absolutely adored that game, and still do, but I don't think I have the patience to ever get back there again and re-try the slog on the replacement PS3.

The Tiamat battle in Darksiders 1. You've got low max health, weapons are still weak, and you have to get the sticky bombs onto Tiamat in an accessible place, and then hit it with the crossblade after charging it with fire, all the while dodging Tiamat's fire blasts. And when you die, you have to go through a skippable cutscene, follwed by an UNskippable cutscene!

It is the first real boss battle in the game, and it is by far the hardest.

I need to play this again. I only played the game once, on Apocalyptic difficulty, and don't recall having any real issues with this fight, maybe having to redo it once or twice. Maybe I just got lucky?

Quote:

Playing Sleeping Dogs can be very frustrating. I finally got a car I liked, pulled over to help a woman with a broken car (to get some XP), and was robbed. After chasing the guy around dozens of twists and turns (you can't catch him until the game lets you), I fight him and get my money back.

But now I can't find my car!

Is it cause the game 'despawned' the vehicle, or the fact you got lost?

It took me like six tries to beat Tiamat, and when I did, I was done with the game soon after that. I just lost my will to keep going.

This reminds me: Valkyria Chronicles. Silvaria's Last Stand. For those who don't know, imagine you're on a battlefield. Actually, you're in a castle. Actually you're in a small pit in the middle of a fortified castle. The good news is your team of 5-6 dudes spawn behind cover. The bad news is that there's a heavy tank just beyond that cover, pointing at the only exit, and you have to run past it and/or destroy it. While dealing with this tank, there's a dozen snipers in elevated positions firing down at you. And there's also a boss with a gatling sniper laser cannon with cheat-mode accuracy who can hit you from across the map, because she's also elevated and you're in a goddamn hole in the middle of a sniper den with a tank babysitting your spawn point. You have to evade or defeat the tank, stay alive through multiple rounds of sniper fire, a gatling laser boss, entrenched defensive camps with auto-turrets, all while slowly climbing the periphery of the castle under constant fire just to reach the boss. Then you have to actually kill the boss (who has absurd evasion stats) while she's, as if I have to remind you, pumping your important story-related characters full of charged plasma at insta-death ranges.

When I finally beat that stage without losing half my important characters, I just lost the motivation to continue. The game had defeated my soul. Haven't picked it up since.

I'll give a ++ to this one, that stage got me to quit for just long enough... for my ps3 to die and take the save with it So, yeah, I absolutely adored that game, and still do, but I don't think I have the patience to ever get back there again and re-try the slog on the replacement PS3.

Sweet. I was to the point of looking up a strategy, but like I said, I took a break to clear my frustration and lost my save. However... this will definitely help encourage me to finally restart and finish this game, eventually. Thanks! But only a little bit, because now I have another game in my backlog!

Is it cause the game 'despawned' the vehicle, or the fact you got lost?

Oh I was lost. I eventually found my way bback to the car, but it took quite a while. Longer than it should have.

Also, I didn't know you could ride the bus in that game. I went to go talk to a person on the street, hit the button, and suddenly I was riding the bus. I hit B to back out but that selected a route that kept me there, unable to get off, for 3 minutes. That was a pain.

The Tiamat battle in Darksiders 1. You've got low max health, weapons are still weak, and you have to get the sticky bombs onto Tiamat in an accessible place, and then hit it with the crossblade after charging it with fire, all the while dodging Tiamat's fire blasts. And when you die, you have to go through a skippable cutscene, follwed by an UNskippable cutscene!

It is the first real boss battle in the game, and it is by far the hardest.

It took me like six tries to beat Tiamat, and when I did, I was done with the game soon after that. I just lost my will to keep going.

Only six? It must have taken me at least 20.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who found that one annoying as sin. It didn't take me 20 tries, but it was the only boss fight that took me more than thrice to get through (like ~10 times -- no joke). The mechanics on it were just annoying and my control was not finite enough. By the time I adjusted to it, it was not a problem and getting better mastery if the controls is probably what helped with other boss fights more later.

However, I didn't just give up -- mostly because I'm stubborn and my teen nephew had already kicked her ass (and was standing there watching me).

How about the entire Ares battle at the end of God of War. That was brutal.. one of the most frustrating parts being where you have to kill the Kratos clones before they kill your wife/daughter.

On god mode that entire Ares sequence took me a little over a week.

As hard as it was it never frustrated me. Ares' attacks were consistent, telegraphed and had explicit counters when you saw them coming so with a bit of practice I could get through phase 1 every time. The clones were fairly easy on normal, Kratos' wife and child had enough health to allow you to ride through it. On God though there was a very specific strategy that involved not getting hit (either you or them) through the first third, spamming Poseidon's Wrath until you were out of mana while standing right next to them, and then hitting PW every time you got enough mana to do so. That let me get through that part (after several hours of trying). Killed Ares in phase 3 the first time.

Phase 2 came close to being frustrating, but the strategy I described above got me close enough, early enough for me to identify what exactly I needed to work on to pass through it. Haven't even tried GoW2, 3 or CoO on God mode after reading about the BS they built into it after Jaffe left. Finished all three of those on Hard the first time.

Chains of Olympus' final boss Persephone: 10000000000000x harder than Ares. Not because she was less predictable or actually any harder. The fucking analog nub on the PSP. That piece of shit should never have been released (the nub hardware, not the game).

There is one mini-game in Plants Versus Zombies I simply cannot beat. I'm good at the rest of the game, but one of the mini-games involves a whole bunch of zombonis and bob sledders. I just can't beat it, and it always comes down the last few seconds of the mini-game.

The 5-consecutive aneurysm operation in Trauma Center: Under the Knife was pure suffering. Mostly because it seems I am a masochistic bastard who played a ROM in my PC, and lemme tell you, you can't be accurate...or fast with KB/M, I never finished the game after that (until I bought the wii, that is).

A more recent one has to be the Optic Sunflower stage in Megaman X8: I was trying to Ace that thing (I wanted the hidden metal),managed to do every chamber with an S rank and just before I get to the final chamber....I touch a fucking spike; no, not even a spike pit, a single, lone spike just pinched Zero's ass by one pixel as he has falling "safely" to the door and he went "AAAAAAAAAAAAH", making my efforts mean jack and squat. I had to redo that level about 12 times before I got the metal, and then I remembered...I actually forgot one metal in that stage, to make things better; the metal was almost at the end...so every chamber again

I'm a notorious rage-quitter. As soon as a game gets even slightly difficult, I just put it down and walk away.

That being said, the stupid rocket levels in Donkey Kong Country Returns made me want to snap the Wii in half. Not only does the rocket have very imprecise controls, but when you die 8 times in the level, a little pig appears and starts waving a white flag, asking if you want to skip the level.

That's almost worse. That's like the game looking at you condescendingly and saying, "Listen, we know you're really bad at this. Would you... would you like some help?"

You respond, "NO, I DON'T NEED ANY &#^$# HELP," run off and immediately crash your rocket into the ground.

To fight you had to alternate hit two buttons on the ADAM keyboard, well that was shit, but then I figured out that if you used a spoon and ran it across both buttons then it became easy. I thought I had the game on the ropes, only to get stuck by the bloody 'trick' way to get out!

Of course Friday the 13th for the NES, and then Goonies for the NES. I believe Goonies was bugged in early releases because we played that game for months. At least I gave up on Friday the 13th after a few days.

This. So much this. I remember a Giant Bomb Quick Look of Super Meat Boy and the mantra was "Never not running" which is the only appropriate way to play these things.

I find it funny that the most frustrating moments in Super Meat Boy generally involve situations where you have to STOP running in order to reliably make a set of jumps. It just takes me forever to remember that it's actually possible to play that game without holding down the run button.